I made Squishy Gerald after revisiting a childhood favorite, Smart Ball for the SNES. I wanted to capture the unique platforming feel, as well as have an excuse to animate a 2d character. Additionally, I saw some overlap in the design with the mobile game Bean Boy, and I wanted to incorporate the feeling of pulling back and hurling the character across the world.

Between the animation work needed and the physics-based platforming character controller I was coding, I wanted to keep the other aspects of the game as simple as possible. I decided on a basic “Reach the Finish Line” goal, with collectable coins along the way to incentivize different routes and trigger a completionism response. The enemies are very simple as well, with basic movement events that loop back and forth, and an option to jump.

I made an initial version over one weekend as a challenge, but came back the next week to add a second enemy type as well as polish the background art assets.